Voyage Junkie

Here is the latest rendition of "To Live in the Moment Without Fear," from December 18, 2011. I am more "visible" in this video than the one from June, because my hair is flying free in a half-ponytail. It's easy to tell the little white girl from the others when her golden tresses are everywhere. This video is of an extended performance featuring revised choreography on seven dancers instead of the original six, a duet with myself and Shio that I was instrumental in choreographing, and a charming finishing number featuring four young creative movement students. There are moments I dislike, like when the fabric gets caught on the back lights and I have to untangle it (very obviously), but overall it was a good experience and it felt nice in performance.

If you're keeping up with the blog, you know that I was recently in a dance performance in Gifu, on a day that was also my Artistic Director's birthday (December 18th, 2011).  A few days later I went to the last class before winter vacation.  It was a crazy class in that we were all tired, one of my friends spilled tea in her bag and had to skip out of most of class, and another girl was there to run through a solo she's performing in a few weeks.  After the warm-up, I spent most of the time doing yoga and Pilates.  When the solo dancer needed a break, Yuko sensei called me over and spent some time teaching me  noh -inspired classical Japanese dance.  She put on music and improvised, and I followed along, fascinated by the subtle movements.  I decided, then and there, to make her a birthday dance honoring our times of cultural exchange.  I set the piece to an Okinawan song, and for movement I improvised much like Yuko sensei, attempting to stay w...

If you're tired of seeing my videos all over the place, this is it for awhile, I promise!  I just finished my current backlog with this installment for my sister Clara.  It's a lonely piece set against a backdrop of autumn trees and a city skyline.  For this piece I listened to the music and took the feel of it to the set, where I improvised in relationship to the various physical structures.  I didn't want to get caught up in the 3/4 time and play into the song too much, so I kept things loose.  My only pet peeve: youtube, why did you choose such awkward thumbnails for this piece?  In post, it made sense to use fades with this dance.  Up until now I've used only quick cuts (or no cuts, in the case of installment two).  However, this dance needed more flow, to go with the 3/4 time.  But every thumbnail is during a fade!  Oh well.  Sorry, it's neither as super cool or as annoyingly ghostly as the thumbnail suggests, whichever you wer...

Hot on the heels of the last video comes number 3, made for my friend Steven Kwan.  This was actually filmed before number 2, but it required a lot more editing so it took a backseat in post-production.  The song Steven picked seemed to call for more than one performer, so I chose a place I could film from one continuous angle and edit into a duet.  I don't have super high-tech equipment, so there's places I had to deal with wind blowing the camera around and other such nonsense, but at least the project stays true to its indie roots. If You Give a Girl a Camera, Installment Three "I Have Something to Discuss" Music: An Argument With Myself  by Jens Lekman   Note: I earn no money from this blog, nor any place this video has been shown so far. Also, this song has strong language at one point, so parents beware!

Here's video number two in my new series!  This one is special because I filmed it entirely in one take.  I wanted to channel the genius of music videos like Christopher Walken's performance in " Weapon of Choice " by Fat Boy Slim, which if somehow you haven't seen because you've been in a hole, please watch it now!  In any case, it took some interesting communication between Matt and myself.  I was up on a hill and I obviously couldn't be listening to the music.  So he's down with the camera, calling up at me when things were changing in the music, and where he was pointing the camera.  I think we really pulled it off in this take, which is only the second full run-through.  Enjoy! If You Give a Girl a Camera, Installment Two "Go West, Young Man" Music:  Black Moon  by Wilco   Note: I earn no money from this blog, nor any place this video has appeared so far.

Chisato, me, and Masumi. Two of my favorite girls invited me to a dance performance of theirs last weekend.  The style is called buyou , a generic term used for traditional Japanese dance forms.  As we know it, modern buyou  is based on traditional performances by  kabuki players.  Those kabuki  players (all men, by the way) lifted the dances from the geisha  of the time, popularizing them in the theaters.  It's a classic example of the relationship between female prostitution and dance, as historically, dance forms done by women were relegated to brothels, brought to the stage by male performers, and finally reclaimed by women.  Today, women of all ages learn and perform buyou .  This honors the beauty of the history and serves to elevate the geisha  to the level they deserve: that of artist.  (To read more about the relationship between dance and prostitution, read "Something In The Way She Moves," by Wendy Buonaventura.)...

On a whim, I decided to start a new dance for camera series inspired by the musical choices of my friends.  It can be difficult for me to develop projects on my own, especially when my hands are tied by factors like lack of space, lack of dancers, etc.  So on the birthday of a longtime friend, I asked him to tell me his favorite song of the moment, and I made the video below to that song.  It turned out much better than I imagined, and I'm currently working on the next four installments of the series.  Enjoy!  If you like it, there will be more coming soon. If You Give a Girl a Camera, Installment One "You're Invited to a Tea Party" Music: Holiday  by Weezer Note: I earn no money from this blog, nor any place this video has appeared so far.

Matt as the hungry crocodile. On October 16th, Matt and I worked our second English Concert.  It was great fun, and yet another opportunity for us to engage with the community in a meaningful way.  I was asked to choreograph another ballet, this time to "Think of Me," as part of the "Phantom of the Opera" skit.  I also played Tinkerbell in "Peter Pan," which involved a lot of flitting around and setting off the magic wand at opportune (and inopportune) times.  Matt made a star turn as the crocodile, then came back to play Monsieur Armand in "Phantom." Here I am, pointing out Peter Pan's hideout to Captain Hook (who also played Peter Pan's shadow) and Smee.  The wand, which I borrowed from one of the girls in the ballet, made a ridiculous musical sound when turned on.  I made sure to flip it on whenever I wanted to motion with it, so it rang out with each move of my hand.  Annoying?  Potentially.  Luckily, the skit (and my...

Yesterday I had the pleasure of performing in a Full Moon Festival in Hashima, a small town just outside of Gifu.  Modern Dance You Co. performed a small, relaxed dance that featured a kid's number to a song about onigiri (rice balls), Sachiko as the princess from the moon, and the rest of us as kunoichi , or female ninjas.  This is the year of the rabbit by the Chinese zodiac, so the two little girls were dressed as rabbits, and had a very important role in taking the princess back to her home on the moon.  It was adorable, and quite a lot of fun. Rie teaches me how to take tea. We spent the day at the cultural center getting ready for the performance.  We were able to take a break before the show started, and we went upstairs to take part in the tea ceremony.  There were manju  decorated like rabbits and delicious bowls of macha , otherwise known as green tea.  I couldn't eat the manju , because although some people will swear it contains no wh...

Yesterday I went to see a solo dance performance at Aichi Arts Center in Nagoya with several of my dance colleagues.  An internationally renowned artist, Motoko Hirayama , presented After the Lunar Eclipse , a dance first premiered in 2009 in the same space.  In it, she collaborated with lighting designer Takuro Osaka  for an hour-long installation work pairing dance with light. Everything goes black.  Rhythmic pounding and crashes of bass instruments commence, and in the darkness the pounding reverberates inside my head.  A diagonal path of light appears, and in it, a dancer enters stage left.  Slowly, she is pulled toward stage right, performing a series of slow walks punctuated by regal lunges and rond de jambes.  Although she quickly approaches stage right, she constantly leans backwards as if she's simultaneously fascinated and frightened by what she'll find.  When she reaches her destination, she breaks into a robotic, doll-like dance...

To Live in the Moment Without Fear  is a work by Yuko Shinoda from Gifu, Japan.  Danced by six women, the dance investigates what it means to be a part of a community threatened by a disaster that takes a life.  Premiered June 5th 2011 in Nagoya, Japan, the dance features a strong movement aesthetic that draws from traditional Japanese dance as well as contemporary styles and contact improvisation.  Shinoda's use of space and timing, as her dancers flow in-and-out of solos, duets, trios, and unison, creates a sense that the dancers are unified and alone at the same time.  In the end, Shinoda's view of life is clear: we must tend to the fallen, but we must never surrender ourselves to fear while we are still alive.

  On June 12th I took part in another dance concert.  This one was more of a recital than a professional venture like last week's, which meant it was a little more relaxed.  I did still have to go for crazy amounts of rehearsal and tech in one weekend, but at least it was only two days of crazy!  I got to meet a lot of really interesting people from all corners of Gifu and Nagoya.  I'm pictured to the left with my itty bitty fan club. I danced in an improvisational workshop piece set by Haruna and Mikiko of Tokyo.  They have an interesting company called KiriCollage , which you check out via the link (although it is mostly in Japanese).  There's a lot of pictures and video on the site, understandable in any language.  They are both very impressive movers and have spectacular improvisational flow together.  I took two workshops with them back in April, and they came back to Gifu to set a workshop dance with the participants.  I got to ...

Matt and I attended a Halloween-themed English production on Sunday night. We proudly donned our costumes again and headed out in quite a lot of rain for a three-hour show (yes, THREE HOURS). A mom of one of Matt's students runs a juku ( cram school), and asked me to choreograph a little dance for three girls as part of the show. They wanted to do "Chinese Tea Dance" from The Nutcracker, and I was happy to oblige with a little Western-influenced ballet. The girls are amazing, as you can see from the video. I set the dance in one rehearsal of less than an hour, and practiced it with them only one other time for about a half-hour. What I wouldn't give to be this talented! Check out the video, linked via youtube: Our new ALT friend Tony, who actually taught at both of our schools last year, came and participated as well. He played Sherlock Holmes in one skit: Tony also created "animal charades" where teams of one parent and one child ...